Nostalgia

As Tony sat quietly on his bed, legs crossed and hands behind his head, his mind raced with nervous thoughts.

“What if I’m made fun of for my age?” 

“What if they recognize my dad?”

“What if I’m used for money?”

“What if nobody likes me?”

He sighed as these ideas rioted around his mind, taking over his thoughts. “I shouldn’t be thinking like this, I’ll be just fine and it’s an excuse to get away from Howard.” The brunette whispered to himself. 

Glancing over at the clock on his bedside he examined the time, ‘6:02’ it read. 

As Tony began to rub his eyes and yawn he kicked his legs off the comfortable mattress they were sanctioned on. Immediately, he threw his arms out and began to stretch, up, down, left, right, forwards, and backward went his arms and legs. 

When he finally felt awake enough, he stood up and headed towards the door located on the right side of his bed. 

Opening the door revealed a complete bathroom, toilet, shower, sink and all. Everything in the room was modernized and stylized to his preference, hot rod red towels, golden shower curtains, silver mats, and even red soap filled the presence of the room in a distinguishable color pattern. 

Walking up to the sink Tony grabbed his toothbrush along with his toothpaste and turned on the faucet. After brushing his teeth, the genius stared at himself in the mirror. 

His most noticeable features at the moment were his messy hair, black eye, and obviously broken nose, but other than that he looked relatively normal, all he’d need to do was comb back his hair a bit and put sunglasses on (not much could be done about his nose).

Once he finished working on the upper area of his body he walked back into his bedroom and immediately began searching through his drawers for clothes. After 5 minutes he finally pulled out a navy blue short sleeve with a white long-sleeve shirt and dark straight-cut jeans with white socks. He struggled to take off / put on his clothes, but after maybe 7 minutes he was finally dressed. 

Checking the time once again, Tony let out a ‘phew’ when he realized it was only 6:23 and he had almost 10 minutes before he had to leave for the bus. He fled out of his room and glided down the main stairs, waltzing himself into the kitchen. He swiftly grabbed himself a slice of bread and threw it into the toaster simultaneously pouring a cup of orange juice for his thirst. As soon as the toast was thrown up from the toaster he snatched the food and messily smeared butter and jelly on it. 

With the toast still in his mouth and the cup left abandoned on the counter, Tony ran to the front door and slammed his feet into his black sneakers. Grabbing his gray backpack Tony screamed a quick “BYE MOM, BYE DAD (Howard, he corrected under his breath), I'M HEADING TO SCHOOL!” and dashed out the front door with 3 minutes to spare. By the time he got to the bus stop the vehicle was already there so he didn’t have to wait. He ran onto the bus and looked around the area. The back of it was pretty much filled up, the only empty seat being next to his best friend James. He made his way to the back of the bus and sat down next to the boy. 

“Hey Tones,” the kid greeted him with a grin and a high-five. 

“What’s up Rhodey?” Tony smiled back at him and examined his features. He was wearing a regular black polo with medium blue jeans and a black belt. His hair was tidily kept short and his clothes were impressively wrinkle-free. He kept a welcoming, yet careful demeanor and seemed unbothered by the first day of school looming over them. 

“God, how are you so calm, it’s the first day of school for Christ’s sake!”  

“Well, for starters, I’m a sophomore, so I’ve already done this before, and second off, I’m not the youngest kid in my class because I skipped two goddamn grades, so it hasn’t come to me that I should worry about anything,” Rhodey replied in a matter-of-factly tone. At this, Tony just rolled his eyes and looked out the window next to his seat. 

“Hey, Rhodey, why does this school have its own bus?” 

“Because so many kids go here it would be too much for the city transportation system.”

“Ohhh.” Tony stayed quiet for a moment, swinging his legs as he thought of random things. Soon, another question came to his mind.

“Did you ever figure out if you could give me the tour?” 

“Uh, no, I can’t. The administration said they’d rather you, quote, ‘meet someone new and get guided by them rather than an old companion,’ which is code for I’m too lazy to change the tour guide.” He emphasized his points with dramatic air quotations and shrugged.

“Jesus, I really don’t want somebody else leading me. What if they’re this goody-two-shoes that sucks the joy out of everything fun!” Tony slammed his head onto the back of the seat in front of him. After he did this a head poked over the seat along with a middle finger. “Oops, I’m sorry!” He whisper-yelled to the person in front of him. They ignored him, but the effort was still there at least. 

After a few minutes of silence, Tony looked out the window to see the bus pulling up to the school. His eyes almost popped out of his skull at the size of the building. The school had two buildings, one for the juniors and seniors, and the other for the freshman and sophomores. The building for the lower grades was large, although it wasn’t as big as the other, and was made up of large, white pillars with light brown bricks. The exterior of the building had many windows and you could see much of the school’s interior from them. He noticed a few plants by the front doors and the words SHIELD HIGH plastered above the entrance. There wasn’t much else he could see besides these features because of the multitude of students entering the building. 

When the bus finally parked Rhodey ushered Tony out of it, pushing him before he got stuck behind all the kids leaving the automobile behind him. As he stumbled out of the building, getting shoved a few times by those surrounding him, he couldn’t help but feel a lot of anxiety from the sight around him. He began to examine the kids both walking into and sitting outside of the school, figuring out who he should and shouldn’t interact with. He noticed a group of kids sitting around a tiny pond a small distance from the entrance. There were 5 of them, each unique to their own extent. 

The biggest of them all had long, blonde hair that was neatly put into a bun with two different colored eyes, one brown and one blue. Next to him was a smaller, timid brunette with rimless glasses and curly hair. On the left of the brunette sat a confident redhead with slightly curled, long hair and dark red lipstick. She sat next to another blonde who was the 2nd smallest of all the boys. He had short brushed-up hair with blonde eyes and was wearing a purple hearing aid in his left ear. Sitting on the bench in front of him was a slightly muscular boy with blonde hair and blue eyes (god, why do so many of them have blonde hair and blue eyes Tony mentally asked himself), he was reading a book on WWII and seemed a tad bit nervous. 

“Wonder what’s up with him,” Tony thought. 

Suddenly, Tony felt a hand on his arm, dragging him to the front door. He tried looking around at more kids, but it was useless because he was being pulled too fast to notice anything. When the hand finally let go of him, he realized it was only Rhodey.

“Jesus platypus, you gave me a heart attack!” 

“Suck it up, you were taking too long gawking at the school, or whatever you were looking at. You were gonna have me miss my first period if you hadn’t started moving.” 

Tony stuck his tongue out at the boy and began to look around the room he was now in. He noticed a door at the end of the room that read “Principal Fury’s office” on a bright gold sign. On the right side of the room, there was a brown, wooden desk with a computer and two picture frames on top of it. In front of the desk, there were two chairs and a small table. 

“Well, I gotta go now, class starts in 5 minutes and the room is pretty far from here.” The dark-skinned boy waved goodbye at Tony and then left the room without another word. Tony stood in his spot for a few minutes, unsure of what to do (goddamn you Rhodey for not telling me what’s happening) until the door he’d entered through finally swung open. 

Through the door came a tall, blonde man with a warm smile on his face. His hair was nicely gelled down and he wore an extremely welcoming demeanor, it almost made Tony worry he was secretly an AI (no way anybody can be this calm, or at least look it!). Tony stared at him for a moment until he finally began to speak.

“Hello, Tony I presume?” He held out his hand, Tony promptly shook it.

“Wow, good grip. I’m Mr. Coulson, the school’s counselor and I’m here to give you a warm welcome to Shield High.” Tony raised an eyebrow, “don't the principal or vice principal at the very least do this sort of thing?”

“You must be thinking ‘Don’t the principal or vice principal usually do the introductions?’” Tony gawked at the man, “How the hell did he most literally read my thoughts?” 

“-and to that, I say, no. Our principal here, Mr. Fury, doesn’t have the best, uhm, people skills when it comes to being nice and although vice principal Hill is a definite improvement, I’m still the best option, socially, out of the three of us.”

“Ah, that makes sense (I guess), but, uh, do you know my class schedule or anything regarding what I need to do for that matter?” The boy shifted on his feet and crossed his arms.

“That actually brings me to my second point. You’ll be guided around the school by our very own school president and he’ll show you your classes!” Coulson smiled at Tony and began to walk back to the door he’d entered through. Opening it, he yelled, “Steve, you can come out now!” 

The boy that Tony had seen sitting on the bench reading earlier carefully walked through the door and waved at Tony. “Hello, I’m Steve Rogers and I’m your, uhm, tour guide.” He stuck out his arm and Tony met it halfway, firmly shaking his hand. The boy, Steve, coughed and straightened his back.

“Well, uhm, you can follow me.” Steve held the door open for Tony and waited for him to walk through before following behind him and shutting the door. 

“Here’s your schedule,” he said before handing Tony a small piece of paper. 

The brunette read it carefully and once he was finished he slammed it into his backpack with little care. “Dammit, English first period, never been my strong suit.” Tony joked, this gained a small smile from Steve.

“Hey, lighten up. I’m not gonna bite.” 

Steve looked around the room for a second before replying.

“Sorry I’m so nervous, it’s just, y’know, with your dad being who he is it’s a bit nerve-wracking trying to make a good impression. Don’t want to accidentally rub you wrong and then be hated by Howard Stark himself.” 

“Well, I’m not my dad,” Tony reassured him, it just barely worked. 

“Uh, well, here’s the library. You can stay here in between periods or at lunch. It’s also open after school, but only from 3:10- 5:00, so do with that what you will.” Steve pointed at a large room to the right of where he was walking. It seemed packed with books and in front of the shelves, there were two sitting areas. They each had 2 bean bags and around 3 chairs matched with 2 tables each. 

"Cool, I'll go here after picking up all the girls." Tony winked at Steve, but his gaze was only met with a small (microscopic) grin, this caused the genius’ expression to falter just a tad bit. 

“Uh, anyways, here’s the-” Tony stopped paying attention, he didn’t really care anymore. He knew he could figure this out on his own (he hoped so at least) and if he couldn’t, he’d find that out as well. Tony stared at Steve as he walked and took in every feature of the blonde. 

He noticed the way his chest puffed out every now and then, or the way his eyes just couldn’t help but look around the room, er- uh, hallways. His head was held high, though, and his mouth stayed in a nervous smile.

“-Well, that’s the end of the tour! Any questions?” Tony blinked and began to stare at Steve, (what’d he say?)

The brunette shook his head, unsure of the question, yet not caring enough to ask what it was. 

“Well, it’s lunchtime so let’s head to the cafeteria, I guess.” Tony nodded and followed Steve, cracking a few jokes as they walked. 

When they finally got to the lunch room Tony took in his surroundings. The room had a tall ceiling decorated with many windows and inside of it there were many round tables with colorful chairs. Most tables had around 5, some had more (from kids taking chairs from other tables), and some had less. He looked around again, at the students this time. Some were studying, some eating, some talking, and some all three. He noticed the kids he’d seen Steve hanging out with earlier along with another boy. He was rather slim and a bit tall. He had long, black hair and was wearing a black tee with black sweatpants. He looked annoyed at the biggest blonde Tony had seen earlier and didn’t look like he wanted to be there. 

Again, Tony surveyed the room and his eyes finally landed on the two people he was originally searching for, Pepper Potts and Rhodey. He walked over to the duo as soon as he spotted them.

“Whatcha’ doing?” Tony interrupted their conversation without a care in the world, his action was met with two pairs of rolled eyes. 

“What, annoyed by my amazing presence?" He teased the two as he sat himself in a chair next to Pepper.

Pepper was a bright red headed girl who didn't take shit from others and knew when to speak up, which was what Tony liked about her. He loved her optimism as well and the way nothing ever seemed to stop her. The same could be said about Rhodey, the way the boy didn't condone assholes and stood up for those who wouldn't, interested Tony which ultimately ended up in the friendship between the three of them.

"Where's Happy?" Tony questioned, looking around the lunchroom.

"Uh, I think he should be coming in any moment." As Rhodey said this, a big brunette boy with gelled down hair and an annoyed demeanor walked through the entrance of the room. Immediately, Tony waved his arm high and Happy spotted him pretty fast. As he sat down next to Tony, he only spared a small smile before putting down and opening his laptop.

Tony and Happy's friendship blossomed a little differently than the others, you see, in middle school / elementary Tony wasn't the strongest and being the nerd he was (especially being the sarcastic nerd) it was hard to keep himself out of trouble. In comes Happy, a kid who was only a year older than Tony yet seemingly 50 feet taller. 

He asked Tony if people were messing with him and when Tony replied with a "eh, it's not that serious." Happy immediately shut him down. Happy introduced himself and told Tony he'd protect him, sort of like a bodyguard, so long as he didn't go out looking for trouble. Tony nodded and said he'd try his best, which Happy replied with "You better." From there, they just stuck together.

"What're you working on?" Tony peeked over the side of Happy's computer and stared at his work. "Algebra." Happy replied grumpily.

Tony nodded and turned away. "Well, I'm hungry, any of you got food for me?" Ever since elementary, Tony never brought in his own food nor money for lunch, even though he's literally rich and because of this Rhodey became accustomed to bringing in a separate lunch for Tony, it was a familiar routine. Immediately, Rhodey pulled out a brown paper baggie from his bag, a note attached to its exterior. He handed it to Tony, before being asked about the piece of paper clinging to it.

“Oh shit, my bad.” Rhodey promptly snatched the note off of the bag and read it, before shoving it into his pocket. 

“Damn Rhodey, note from your mommy or something?” Rhodey shushed Tony before focusing back on his own meal. Tony stuck his tongue out at his friend before looking at the bag in front of him. Opening it he was met with an average American school lunch, a small turkey sandwhich, cut up cucumbers, a poptart, and a water bottle. Grabbing out his meal, he opened the baggies they were placed in and began to eat. 

Just as he was finishing the poptart the bell rang signaling the end of lunch. Tony shoved the poptart in his mouth, and, unsuccessfully, tried to chug the water left in the plastic bottle next to his trash before checking his schedule again.

‘Hm…. 4th period chem, let’s see how this goes.’ Tony thought as he threw out his trash, putting the bottle in his pockets and shoving the schedule into his backpack